4 March, 2012

Smoked Eggplant Salad

This salad has layers of flavor. Smoked eggplant provides the strong base, over which lemon, garlic, dill and other flavors build a fresh salad. You can serve this like a bruschetta on a toasted slice of baguette or ciabatta bread.

Skewer the eggplants and peppers and grill it on open fire until peppers have blistering skins , and until eggplants are soft to the touch on the stem side. Peppers will cook much faster than the eggplant. Transfer to a dish and cover to sweat for 5 minutes.

Remove skins under cold running water. Place in a dish and sprinkle with a few drops of lemon juice. This whitens the eggplant.

Chop the eggplants, green peppers, onion and tomato roughly the same size. Mix in the lemon zest, dill. Mix salt, lemon juice and olive oil and pour over the salad. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes for the flavors to develop and infuse.